<\/p>\n
The text that has shaped our month\u2019s devotions (2 Corinthians 5:17) has an important, little phrase that shows up again here, in Romans 16:7: \u201cin Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
This phrase is one of the apostle Paul\u2019s favorite descriptions of people who have come to believe in the Lord Jesus, are redeemed in him, and are being transformed into the likeness of Christ. They are \u201cin Christ.\u201d Christ is their home, their resting place, their source of life.<\/p>\n
Today it is more common to say that these people are Christians. Paul said that they are \u201cin Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andronicus and Julius are new creations \u201cin Christ,\u201d along with all of the other people Paul mentions in Romans 16. And, according to Paul, they were believers \u201cin Christ\u201d before Paul himself was. In addition, their \u201cin Christ\u201d character led them to follow Christ into imprisonment alongside Paul. Their service for the Lord was so remarkable that Paul described them as \u201coutstanding among the apostles.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did these two people become \u201cin Christ\u201d? God drew them into faith in Jesus, the one and only Savior. God\u2019s love for them turned them into people who loved God. The Lord made them into new creations. And their transformation hints at something big: God\u2019s new creation!<\/p>\n
Thank God with me if he has done that for you too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The text that has shaped our month\u2019s devotions (2 Corinthians 5:17) has an important, little phrase that shows up again here, in Romans 16:7: \u201cin Christ.\u201d This phrase is one of the apostle Paul\u2019s favorite descriptions of people who have come to believe in the Lord Jesus, are redeemed in him, and are being transformed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9170,9146,86,269,9171,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-27742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotionals","8":"tag-andronicus","9":"tag-creations","10":"tag-daily","11":"tag-devotional","12":"tag-julius","13":"tag-today"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}